She can save the "technically true" for the other lawyers, the rest of us are not amused. The fact remains that she was seeking a severe sentence, but now want to magically make up another truth...

If she think she was right in the first place, she sold stick to it. If not she should apologize. Now she is just looking like a fool.

> She can save the "technically true" for the other lawyers

She is saying this 'for the other lawyers', specifically her bosses in congress. She likely doesn't give a rats ass about what Joe general Public thinks about the case but is likely scared shitless that if this turns in to actual culpability that Aarons relatives will sue.

Her political career is dead in the water, she might hold on to her job if the shitstorm doesn't get any worse. Google "carmen ortiz" to see how it is developing, you might as well google "Aaron Swartz", the results are much the same.

" She said something that was misleading but technically true."

The word I use for that is "lie".

And when you have a situation like that where neither is "technically false," it's called "talking out of both sides of your mouth." However, besides the point, is "misleading the public and the defendant" a professional standard for federal prosecutors?

In addition to repealing the CFAA, I'd like to see some hard character standards imposed for government prosecutors, some legal requirements and tests imposed on Bar Associations for the benefit of the public against and for whom they serve. We can call it "Carmen's Law."

> However, besides the point, is "misleading the public and the defendant" a professional standard for federal prosecutors?

I think this strategy is par for the course because it generates a situation the prosecutors control, similar to the anchoring strategy used during business negotiations. You've just undermined the position of the defendant at no cost to yourself. As long as prosecutors careers do not depend on justice but on cases won this will likely continue or even get worse.

Right now there's an opening to deal with the fact that it has become par for the course, with the problem of careerism and point-scoring with people's freedom.

Yes and that window of opportunity is already slowly closing, the real pressure points are that technicalities and an overly literal interpretation of the law should not trump morality, that selective prosecution is rife with abuse and another important area is that justice should be about actual justice rather than career advancement as well as the negotiation tactics involved in plea bargaining.

Exactly. Vivtek caught on to this in this thread:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5072066